Claude found a $1,600 loss. Three months before it hit.
Lena's Bakery has twelve months of profit and loss sitting in a spreadsheet nobody wants to open. I put Claude inside that Excel file and asked it four questions. It found a $411 monthly bleed and gave the owner three months of warning before it became $1,600. Below is the add-in setup and the four questions, word for word, in the order I asked them.
The spreadsheet nobody wants to open
If your profit and loss sheet gets read once a year, at tax time, in front of your accountant, this is your video.
I build AI systems for business owners, and the financial part is the one that sits longest in my backlog, because it is the part they dread the most. The sheet does the scaring: a Summary tab with months running in every direction, then sales detail, COGS, payroll, operating expenses, and a lot of numbers most of us do not enjoy looking at.
With Claude inside Excel, you stop reading the sheet and start asking it questions. The workbook on screen is a demo, Lena's Bakery, twelve months of profit and loss. The same four questions work on yours.
What moved
Two months side by side, the three lines that moved the most, and the one that deserves your attention first.
The story behind it
Six months back on the flagged line. A one-month spike, a trend, or a season.
Three months ahead
If this month's pattern holds, does the business end up ahead, flat, or squeezed.
Ask your accountant
Three questions for the next call, each one tied to the line it came from.
First, put Claude inside Excel
You do this once. You need a paid Claude plan to sign in.
Open Excel and find Add-ins in the menu.
Click More Add-ins and type Claude in the search.
Two results come up: Claude for Microsoft 365, and Claude by Anthropic for Excel. You are in Excel, so choose Claude by Anthropic for Excel.
Press Add, then Continue. It takes you to your Claude page to log in.
Sign in with your personal Claude account, the paid one. The add-in installs on your computer.
Click Claude in the Excel menu and the panel opens right next to your sheet.
Already installed? Then Claude is sitting in your Add-ins menu right now. Click it and go straight to the questions.
The four questions, in the order I asked them
Open your sheet, open the Claude panel beside it, and ask them one at a time.
Find the line that deserves your attention
Lena's sheet is a scary one, and I am looking for something specific. I do not want to dig through every tab to find it. So the first question hands Claude two months and asks for the three lines that moved the most. Claude ran a month over month comparison on the bakery and sent me to one place first: repairs and maintenance, on the Summary tab.
Question 1: compare two months
Compare May 2026 and June 2026, list the three lines that moved the most, by how much, and tell me which one deserves my attention first.
Make it yours: swap in your own two months. The last month you closed and the one before it is a good place to start.
A spike, a trend, or a season
As a business owner, you want the story behind the number. The second question takes the line Claude just flagged and looks back six months. For the bakery the answer was good news: a one-month spike, not a trend. Claude read it as a lumpy, event-driven expense, so the bakery is not bleeding cash on that line.
Question 2: get the story
For the line you flagged first, look across the last six months and tell me the likely story: is this a one-month spike, a trend, or a seasonal pattern? Point to the months that support your answer.
Keep in mind: the panel reads your business secondhand, from the sheet only. If the answer does not match what you remember about that month, go with your memory, then find out why Claude is not seeing what you see.
Look three months ahead
Question three is a what-if. Claude built a three-month projection right below the data, and gave its verdict in one word: squeezed. If June's pattern holds, the bakery loses $411 each month, and left alone that becomes $1,600.
Three months of warning is enough time to change something. That is the only reason to run this question.
Question 3: look ahead
Let's look ahead and do some projections. If this month's pattern holds for three more months, does the bakery end up ahead, flat, or squeezed?
Make it yours: swap the bakery for your business, and keep the three words. Ahead, flat, or squeezed gets you a verdict you can act on.
Walk into the call with three questions
The last question turns the sheet into an agenda. Claude drafted three questions for the bakery's accountant and told me exactly which cells to look at for each one. Should the June repair bill be capitalized instead of expensed? Why is COGS creeping up as a share of revenue every single month? The third was about the owner's draw starting in July.
Question 4: prepare the accountant call
Based on this sheet, draft the three most useful questions I should bring to my accountant this quarter. Plain language, and tell me which line each question comes from so I can point at it on the call.
Keep going: three is where I stopped on camera. Ask it for more. You are using Claude as a partner to find things in your own spreadsheet.
All four, set up for your own sheet. Same questions, with the bakery's months and name taken out. Ask them one at a time and in order, because question two works on whatever question one flags.
The four questions for your sheet
QUESTION 1. WHAT MOVED Compare [last month] and [the month before], list the three lines that moved the most, by how much, and tell me which one deserves my attention first. QUESTION 2. THE STORY For the line you flagged first, look across the last six months and tell me the likely story: is this a one-month spike, a trend, or a seasonal pattern? Point to the months that support your answer. QUESTION 3. THE WARNING Let's look ahead and do some projections. If this month's pattern holds for three more months, does my business end up ahead, flat, or squeezed? QUESTION 4. THE ACCOUNTANT Based on this sheet, draft the three most useful questions I should bring to my accountant this quarter. Plain language, and tell me which line each question comes from so I can point at it on the call.
What Claude in Excel does not do
Worth knowing before you hand it your numbers.
It does not replace your accountant
It spots the patterns you would have missed and takes the dreaded part of reading a spreadsheet off your plate. The accountant stays.
It does not file anything
Your taxes and your payroll are still yours to file. Claude reads the sheet and explains it.
It reads your business secondhand
All it knows is what is in the sheet. When the answer clashes with what you remember, trust your memory and go find out why.
Do this tonight
One sheet, four questions. This saves in your browser, so you can close the tab and come back.
If you do one thing tonight: open last month's sheet and start asking the questions.
Not sure your numbers are where to start?
The free AI Audit is nine questions about how your business runs, and it tells you the first thing you should build. Two minutes, no call, no pitch, just the readout.